General John Abizaid, the head of the United States Central Command, held talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on local and international efforts to combat terrorism, state media said on Tuesday. The talks came as Ethiopia faced accusations of deploying its troops inside Somalia to protect the country’s fledgling interim government.
Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir voiced strong opposition to the deployment of Western troops in war-torn Darfur, vowing his country would not be "recolonised", state media reported on Tuesday. "I swear that there will not be any international military intervention in Darfur as long as I am in power," al-Beshir was quoted as saying.
Striking security guards and industry employers were on the brink of signing a wage deal to end the three-month strike early on Tuesday morning. Talks were still in progress shortly before 6am as the parties worked through the night in deliberations around talks mediated by the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration in Parktown, Johannesburg.
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Spain joined the happy band of qualifiers for the second round of the World Cup on Monday but were made to work hard for their 3-1 victory over 2004 African Nations Cup champions Tunisia. It was a tough day at the office for Africa as the joy of Ghana’s win over the Czech Republic evaporated as Switzerland beat Togo 2-0.
An elderly man who was stung to death bees at a village near Butterworth at the weekend was probably taking part in a cultural ceremony to remove dangerous African honey bees. Eastern Cape police said on Monday that Victor Ndoda Nyembezi (73) had been part of a group of about 100 people who were trying to remove a hive from a homestead in Mgomanzi village on Friday.
There has been a break-in at the African Christian Democratic Party’s (ACDP) offices in the Kwazulu-Natal legislature, party spokesperson Cedric Sokhutu said on Monday. ”Paperwork files have been removed from MPL Joanne Down’s office and there is a possibility that the computer hard drive has been interrogated,” he said.
Arms control campaigners are to present the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the world’s largest visual petition at 10am at Constitutional Hill in Johannesburg. They want the government to know that thousands of South Africans are calling for tough controls on the international arms trade.
An ambitious project to safeguard future food supplies began on on Monday with the launch of a ”Noah’s ark” for the world’s most important plants. The new Svalbard International Seed Vault will serve as a repository for crucial seeds in the event of a global catastrophe, said Norway’s Agriculture Minister, Terje Riis-Johansen.
The soldiers rounded up the villagers at first light. The Taliban had just pummelled the new Afghan National Army base at Gaza in the Arghandab Valley, a notorious rebel nest in Zabul province. Now the soldiers wanted to know who was sheltering them. They grabbed Jamal Ludin as he left for morning prayers.
The last thing Elijah Mathibela expected when his phone rang on Easter Monday was to be told of deaths in the community. The broken bodies of three young women were lying behind a shopping centre in Mamelodi West, Pretoria. They were murdered. Mathibela, the principal of Jafta Mahlangu High, could not help but wonder whether they were among his charges.